Jerry Clay seeking another stint on Atascadero council

December 11, 2012

Atascadero Councilman Jerry Clay, 78, who chose not to run for reelection in November, is now eying the seat to be left vacant in January when Councilman Tom O’Malley takes his position as mayor.

With two years left on his council seat, O’Malley ran unopposed for mayor. Clay decided not to run for another term on the council which has set on since 1996. The two incumbents, Councilwoman Roberta Fonzi and Mayor Bob Kelley, were reelected.

Now Clay says he would like his council members to appoint him to fill O’Malley’s soon to be vacated seat.

In order to fill the seat, the council can nominate a person to fill the vacancy, determine an application process or call for a special election which is slated to cost between $35,000 and $85,000.

11 Comments

Mike B.
I think you really saw the “good old Boys & Gal” in action at tonight’s Atascadero City Council meeting. The majority of the citizens along with 2 former Mayors spoke in favor of Mr. Clay retaining O’Malley’s 2 year seat.
With the exception of Bob Kelley what you saw tonight was a gross violation of the Brown Act. Immediately Ms. Fonzi nominated Ms. Moreno with all of the accolades of being a female, I guess males are not qualified in her opinion, and being overly connected to the community. Where did she come from? Then Tom O’Malley chipped in with his support of her past service to the Planning Commission and all of her great qualities to be a council member. And then the final cop out when Mr. Stutervant stated that they hadn’t talked about her nomination (guilty-why would he bring that up?) and was fully prepared to endorse her based upon whatever qualifications he thought she had. All three of them were fully prepared to take this action only after Ms. Moreno had approached the podium. What a coincidence?
Nothing against Ms. Moreno although it was quite clear that O’Malley, Fonzi and Stutervant had this planned from the get go. Obviously a violation of the Brown Act, unfortunately nothing will become of this as the DA in the county could care less about this.
I hope that the citizens of ATown take note of this and monitor the actions of the newly elected Mayor, who threw Mr. Clay “under the bus”, and his three followers, Fonzi, Stutervant and Moreno. They are obviously more concerned about their political futures than they are in the future of Atascadero.
McKinney now has his people in place to revert back to old times in ATown.

Not necessarily a violation of the brown act. Moreno probably approached each of those council members individually and discussed her interest for the seat with them. That is a perfectly natural and legal thing to do, in fact; it would be expected. She is part of the club so it’s easy to see how this came together. As for Stutevant, he always just follows along. The question is, could she beat Clay if (I said “if”) there was an election? Probably not in my opinion.

If this stunt is pulled off it will be so symptomatic of the difficult problems facing Atascadero, specifically dishonest politicians and executives. If they staged this (and I suspect they did), it was done long in advance of the election and probably in violation of the Brown Act.

As for Clay, remember that he was one of the voices who publically complained, asking why I was “picking on” Kelly Gearhart. This was around the time that I first took my complaint to the DA.

Until the people stand up against such political misdeeds and dishonesty, Atascadero will never amount to more than a string of tobacco shops, discount stores, tattoo parlours and fast food drive thru’s.

As long as these guys continue to rip off the taxpaying public then I am going to beat on the pie plate. If more people had the courage to stand up, then many of these problems would start to evaporate. What about you? Do you have the fortitude to say enough or are you one of the wrongdoers yourself?

There is one thing that I know for certain about Jerry. If even a hint of what occurred in SLO on 12/07 surfaced in A-Town, Jerry would have gone out and personally lower every city flag to half staff himself. As long as he is around, our veterans will always have support and rightfully so.

On other issues, he votes according to what he thinks is right. He’s sort of old school, sometimes I like that mentality and sometimes I don’t.

Agreed, Cindy. Clay definitely supports veterans & is very patriotic–good things. But unfortunately he’s also part of the good-ol’-boy-network which has blindly followed city manager Wade McKinney’s often questionable leadership.(FEMA funds/ Kelly Gearhart/ et al)

It’s time for a new, unibiased, younger council member. Who that would be is a mystery, though…

Although Jerry is a very “nice guy”, I would love to see some fresh blood in the mix.
Retire already Jerry! You have had your turn at doing as much good and damage to our home as you need to feed your ego. You can rest now and let the “younger folk” that really “live” here everyday have a turn.
The generation that is now out and about in every aspect of our city earning and spending the money should be able to determine some amount of how we continue to develop, don’t you think?!
Good Luck to you.

It’s like playing musical chairs. Jerry is 78 = give it a break, Jerry. Actually, the old boys played a smart game. Jerry didn’t run because in November and made a deal with the other Council members to not split the votes and have a loser and then he would be reappointed. Just keep it in the family, right Jerry and Tom!